Starred as James Bond in seven films in series
Moore, who never gained as much notoriety for the role as Sean Connery, later became an ambassador for UNICEF.
LONDON— Roger Moore, the suavely insouciant star of seven James Bond films, has died in Switzerland. Hewas 89.
The British actor died Tuesday after a short battle with cancer, according to a family statement posted on Moore’s official Twitter account.
“We knowour own love and admiration will be magnified many times over, across theworld, by people who knew him for his films, his television shows and his passionate work for UNICEF, which he considered to be his greatest achievement,” the statement said.
Moore’s relaxed style and sense of whimsy, which relied heavily on the arched eyebrow, seemed a commentary on the essential ridiculousness of the Bond films, in which the handsome British secret agentwas as adept at mixing martinis, bedding beautifulwomen and ordering gourmet meals as hewas at disposing of supervillains trying to take over theworld.
“Tome, the Bond situations are so ridiculous, so outrageous,” he once said. “I mean, this man is supposed to be a spy and, yet, everybody knows he’s a spy. Every bartender in the world offers him martinis that are shaken, not stirred. ... So you have to treat the humor outrageously as well.”
While he never eclipsed Sean Connery in the public’s eye as the definitive James Bond, Moore did play the role of secret agent 007 in just as many films as Connery did, and he managed to do so while “finding a joke in every situation,” according to film critic Rex Reed.
The actor, who came to the role in 1973 after Connery tired of it, had already enjoyed a long career in films and television, albeit with mixed success.
Hewas remembered warmly by fans of theU.S. 1950s-’60s TV series “Maverick” as Beauregarde Maverick, the English cousin of theWildWest’s Maverick brothers, Bret and Bart. He also starred in the 1959U.S. series “The Alaskans.” In England, he had a long-running TV hit with “The Saint.”
Such success followed a Time magazine review of one of his earliest films, 1956’s “Diane,” in which his performance opposite Lana Turnerwas dismissed as that of “a lump of English roast beef.”
Born in London, the only child of a policeman, Moore had studied painting before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He appeared opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 1954’s “The Last Time I SawParis” and with Eleanor Parker in “Interrupted Melody” the following year.
In 1973, he made his first Bond film, “Live and Let Die.” Hewould make six more, “TheManWith the Golden Gun,” “The Spy WhoLovedMe,” “Octopussy,” “Moonraker,” “For Your Eyes Only and “A View to a Kill,” over the next 12 years. And while the Bond of the Ian Fleming novels that the films were based onwas generally described as being in his 30s, Moorewould stay with the role until hewas 57.
He continued towork regularly in films after handing over Bond to TimothyDalton, but never with the same success.
In 1991, Moore became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. “I felt small, insignificant and rather ashamed that I had traveled so muchmaking films and ignored whatwas going on around me,” he said in describing howthe work had affected him.
In 1996, when his UNICEF job took him to the World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, he disclosed that he too had been a victim.
“Iwas molested when I was a child, not seriously, but I didn’t tellmy mother until Iwas 16, because I felt that itwas something to be ashamed of,” he said.
Moore received theDag Hammarskjold Inspiration Award for hiswork with UNICEF andwas named a commander in France’s NationalOrder of Arts and Letters in 2008, an award he saidwasworth “more than an Oscar.”
Moorewas divorced three times: fromskater Doorn Van Steyn in 1953, English singer Dorothy Squires in 1969 and Italian actress LuisaMattioli, the mother of his children Deborah, Geoffrey and Christian, in 2000.
He married a fourth time, in 2002, to Swedish socialite Kristina Tholstrup.